Hawks grab Patrick Kane in first pick of NHL draft

Ignoring last-minute offers from Phoenix and Vancouver, the Hawks took right wing Patrick Kane with the first selection in Friday’s NHL draft.

Kane, at 5-foot-9 and 162 pounds, is smaller than Denis Savard was during the prime of his Hawks career, but general manager Dale Tallon and Savard, entering his first full season as head coach, hope Kane can eventually have a similar impact, and lift the Hawks from a decade in the doldrums.

First, he has to make the team.

“That’s my goal,” Kane said from the draft floor at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio. “This is just another chapter in the books. I have to prove myself at the next level.”

Kane proved himself at the junior hockey level, leading the three Canadian major junior leagues in scoring last season, with 62 goals and 145 points for the London Knights of the Ontario League.

“I think he’s got a great opportunity of making our team,” Tallon said after making the pick, the first time the Hawks have had the top selection in the draft.

“Patrick has shown that he can score at all levels of hockey,” USA Hockey development head coach Ron Rolston told NHL.com. “He has exceptional on-ice vision, and combined with the ability to control the play with the puck, he is a threat every time he is on the ice.

“He is also one of those few players that truly have the ability to make others on the ice better.”

That echoed a comment Tallon had made recently. Clearly, the Hawks selected Kane with the idea that he’ll quickly become a leader — on the same day they traded captain Adrian Aucoin, the oft-injured defenseman, to Calgary along with their seventh-round pick for defensemen Andrei Zyuzin and Steve Marr. Aucoin waived a no-trade clause in his contract to make the swap possible.

Kane should make an immediate impact with the team, albeit not on the scale of what Sidney Crosby, the top pick two years ago, has achieved with Pittsburgh.

Kane, who has worn 88 — signifying the year he was born — most of his young career, is a playmaking winger, one who can shoot but is said to be even better as a passer. Small by modern NHL standards, scouts say he’s elusive, and Tallon, who found himself leaning more and more toward Kane as the selection loomed, is among a chorus of seasoned observers who insist that he can not only take it physically, but dish it out.

A Buffalo native, Kane grew up a Sabres fan, and said the most memorable game he’s seen was the 1999 Stanley Cup clincher, when Brett Hull of Dallas scored a controversial overtime goal to capture the Cup in Buffalo. He was excited that left wing James vanRiemsdyk, a New Jersey native, was selected second, by Philadelphia, giving the U.S. a sweep of the first two selections in the NHL selection meeting for the first time.

“It’s unbelievable,” Kane said. “It’s good to see the Americans start coming into the league.”

He’ll come to Chicago on Monday and throw out the first pitch at a Cubs game. He joked that he’d be singing during the seventh-inning stretch, “so I might have to work on some things there,” but Savard is expected to handle that chore.

The final six rounds of the draft are today. The Hawks have picks in all but the fourth and seventh rounds.

The Hawks don’t get much punch from the blueline in Zyuzin, who had a goal and five assists in 49 games last season, but rid themselves of a $4 million salary headache in Aucoin, who missed 21 games last season and 70 over two seasons because of injuries. Zyuzin, a healthy scratch the last 12 games of the year, following bouts with knee and groin injuries, will make $1.45 million this season.

Marr, the other pickup in the deal, played for Calgary’s farm team, Omaha of the AHL, last season.
Aucoin played for new Flames head coach Mike Keenan when they were in Vancouver in 1998-99, scoring 18 of 23 goals on the power-play that season.

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